operation bombarossa
by Ten-Faced
Summary: iPod shuffle challenge, request by soul-madness. Red/Leaf and Green/Leaf/Red.
1. Bonamana

1. Bonamana by Super Junior.

* * *

_Look at the stars,_ he says. _They all make certain shapes, see?_

She looks where his fingers point and sees a bunch of dots that are like lights being swallowed up by the ever-hungry darkness, and the more she stares at them the harder it is to actually notice them.

So no, she doesn't see them like he does. _I see,_ she lies, wanting to emphasize or understand or whatever it is you do when you like a person, because she does like him, she thinks, as much as she can like a person when the person is eight years old and just wants to continue believing in true, eternal love.

He doesn't fall for it and looks at her with red eyes that are the very definition of skeptic. She caves and admits she doesn't see it.

Red's patient; he shows her the charts and points again and this time she thinks, just thinks that maybe, just maybe, she can really see the shapes of a queen and a king and a proud horse.

* * *

_He moves and she wonders if he ever saw her like she saw him, like he saw those stars of his_.

* * *

She sees a boy named Green. She thinks that he's an odd one who may or may not be a psychopath – she's not interested in learning the exact definitions a psychologist or whoever decides those kinds of things would use.

His grandfather gives her a starter and he challenges her there and then.

Sheer will and some kind of instant connection has her beating him instantly, setting the standards for their every other encounter there and then in the small building where information and data is processed, in the research center slightly out of place in the small town that's all she's ever really known.

* * *

She sees him – the boy with green eyes and a loud mouth and spiky hair and just a snappy attitude, nothing like her star-loving boy who has left and not shown once – as a rival and can't imagine him as anything else until the day she defeats him in the chamber of the champion and he kisses her, abrupt and unpracticed and quick.

* * *

_And maybe she's always been ready to see something other than vague, twinkling stars._

* * *

_Or, maybe she hasn't._

* * *

_She still doesn't know exactly what she sees in the world._

* * *

Because soul-madness requested this somewhere in January to help me fill my goal of 100 stories. It's not weird that I'm writing it now for #103.


	2. Nekomimi Archive

2. Nekomimi Archive, covered by Ikasan

* * *

"How about it?" her voice is chirpy and almost familiar, like déjà vu and a dream he can't place and her smile is one of sincerity with hidden mischief when she's offering him 'the best deal of his life' with sparkling green eyes that says, that screams, 'I am sincere'.

"You want me to trade," he states her offer back, trying to get this straight. His mother does this a lot and he doesn't understand why she always gets exasperated when he tries to fix the things she complains about. Green tells him it's a girl thing, but if it works for his superwoman of a mother maybe it'll work on her only known family. "My eevee for your meowth."

The girl who calls herself Leaf – and he'd think that it was a fake name but his name is Red and his best friend's is Green and that doesn't give him the right to talk – doesn't try any other sweet-talks or supposed-bargains. She just looks at him with her green eyes and there's a moment of silence before she breaks it with her chirping voice.

"Please?" she asks and he thinks that she'd make a great politician or a condo saleswoman because the next thing he knows his formerly-newly-acquired eevee is looking at him with an unreadable expression as the girl whose shoulder it's sitting on bounces away in joy while a meowth yawns and bites his ankle.


	3. Turn It Up

3. Turn it Up by T.O.P

* * *

He may not speak but if someone could communicate with him, he'd surprise the person by telling them all about serial killers. How most were male, how females were quite rare. How with females, it was so much harder to catch them because most of the time their motive wasn't sexual or anything so personal or rage-filled; no, it was more goal-oriented.

If someone could have read his mind – because nothing on earth would let him just freely talk about this hidden secret – the person would see that he knew who had killed his father and left the taunting message written in blood on the walls – how clichéd – about the death of one man and the disappearance of one girl and how this was far from the end, no, just the beginning.

He knows the killer because the killer is his best friend – no, sorry, _was_ his best friend. The killer was the teenage girl supposedly abducted by the supposed killer who left a message, who tortured the man called his father, who left a blatantly obvious signature in the form of a playing card with the image of a white-furred disaster pokémon glaring like the epitome of doom from the thick piece of paper.

No one else knows that she's the killer because after she told him, after she killed him, after she proclaimed her plan and her love for him he kept silent and watched as she left him with a blown kiss and a wink.

* * *

When he's told of the duties of a champion he leaves the room because he doesn't think that even after taking down the criminal organization with serious issues that he's going to be able to stand for justice and law.

He doesn't stop and eventually he's at the top of Mt. Silver. He decides to play the loner – and screw what Lance tells him.

* * *

When a girl with brown hair stuck in pigtails topped with a large, marshmallow-like hat comes to challenge him his heart stops – she looks just like her.

He blinks and clenches a fist as he welcomes her – somewhat. His social skills have never been the best and it's gotten worse.

During the entire battle he's distracted because she's like the damn replica of the killer girl – only with brown instead of green eyes.

After the battle where he suffers loss for the first time – he doesn't really feel the sting, though – he's trying to shake her hand when she holds up a finger and removes a coloured contact lens from her eye.


	4. Eh? Ah, Sou

4. Eh? Ah, Sou covered by Yamai

* * *

"So that's it?" the boy asks her, incredulous disbelief lacing his voice. She's used to hearing dramatic intonations in his voice and continues to face the window, looking at the rain drizzling down with the flashes of lightning and the rumbling thunder making this all a lovely musical from mother nature. She's never been scared of lightning like those girls in school and always loved it, always wanted to just look at it forever.

"That's it," she says and is rewarded with silence from Green, although the silence is him glaring holes at the back of her head and telling her that she's an idiot. Not like she's ever really cared, but . . . .

But nothing, she's still going to be waiting for Red. He's not going to come down and she's not going to go up there – Mt. Silver? Ew – and they're just going to have a battle of wills and patience.

The girl named Leaf might fall in love with some other boy. The boy named Red might fall in love with some other girl.

She thinks that she'll win this.


	5. Senbonzakura

5. Senbonzakura covered by Yamai

* * *

"So you're Red," she sneers at him and he thinks that there's something different about her, despite the fact that she's one of the grunts and therefore impossible to tell apart. "From Pallet Town?" and this time there's no sneer, just curiosity.

He nods because he never speaks.

"Interesting," she says and spins a red-and-white sphere on her fingers. Green could do that, but he's never been able to. "I was once from Pallet Town."

And before he can figure this out a nine-tailed fox with cream fur and fiery eyes leap at him.

His partners take the fox down without any struggle or command.

When the battle's over she's good-natured to the point on being cheerful as she calls back all her pokémon. He's unbalanced by it because that should not be the response he gets. "I'll see you around?" she asks as she tosses him a few coins as payment – even grunts pay him when they lose, he supposes it's some kind of honour thing even the lowest of the low have.

He tips his head to the side in the universal gesture of confusion.

"Why am I so happy?" she asks, filling in the blanks herself and making a very good guess. When he nods she beams. "Because I'm happy!"

And she bows to an imaginary applauding audience and skips away humming a tune just as cheery as she is.

He thinks that the song's lyrics won't be half as cheerful – he thinks it'll be dark and gloomy.

* * *

Despite the farewell promise she makes he never once sees Rocket Grunt Leaf again.


	6. Yobanashi Deceive

6. Yobanashi Deceive covered by Pokota

* * *

It's a nice day, huh? How are you?

Pulse.

Me? Oh, fine, thanks for asking.

Pulse.

Isn't this exciting? I . . . I've been waiting for this opportunity for such a long time . . . I can hardly wait!

Pulse.

W-what? O-of course I know only one of us will be chosen!

Pulse.

Y-yeah, it'll probably be you who gets chosen . . . you _are_ the boy, after all. But I can still hope, can't I?!

Pulse.

Oh, sorry. I was just . . . excited. Yeah, that's it!

Pulse.

Thanks. So, if you were the one chosen, which starter are you going to choose? Oh, don't look at me like that, you know that we're going to be offered one!

Pulse.

Me first? But I _asked_ first!

Pulse.

Hmph. Fine. I think . . . I think I'd like the grass-type. Because my default name is supposed to be Leaf or something. How about you?

Pulse.

. . . you want a Pikachu? That's not even an option!

Pulse.

In the original, yeah, but – oh, hey, here he comes!

Pulse.

He's giving that speech of his . . . Wonder what my name will be if I'm chosen . . . .

Pulse.

Either way, we'll never see each other again, will we?

Pulse.

Heh . . . I guess you're right about that. If one side of the coin is up the other must be down . . . so this is good-bye?

Pulse.

Alright. Good-bye, Red, it was nice meeting you.

Pulse.


End file.
